Like a Lion
by AllTheHats
Summary: Minamoto no Yorimitsu steals a man from the demon king and shapes him into a sword, a tool to be wielded. Shuten Douji steals a sword from the Minamoto clan and teaches him, against all odds, to be human. A story about love, or something like it.


**A/N: **Second person POV, starts with Shuten and alternates with Onikiri at every linebreak.

* * *

It happens apropos of nothing, on a lazy spring day.

The afternoon light turns a gentle, hazy pink as it filters through the cherry blossoms overhead, the blooms shedding petals like water through a sieve, bits of pink catching on everything — your hair, your clothes, your drink. Across from you, Ibaraki huffs in annoyance as he attempts, futilely, to get them all out of his clothes without having to put down his cup.

"Hey, Ibaraki," you call to him, watching with a mix of fondness and exasperation as his head immediately snaps up, "pour me another drink."

"Of course, my friend!" he replies with no hesitation, and, war against the flowers forgotten, settles his cup on the little stone table between you. As he moves to fetch a new bottle, a jingle draws your gaze to his feet, where your eyes catch —

_ "If you wish to fight again, ring my bell to find me."_

— on a little golden bell. "You turned it into an _anklet_? Does it _ever _stop ringing?" you ask, amused. "Guess that just means you always want to fight."

Your mind doesn't catch up to your mouth until you hear the sharp crack of shattering glass, and look up to see that Ibaraki — wide-eyed and shell-shocked — has dropped the bottle.

* * *

It comes to you in fits and starts, after that. You remember flashes; impressions more than real memories. Sparring, never losing whether head to head or all against one. Sharing food and drink and easy laughter. Looming, ash-white skeletons, clad all in armor. A spark of proud delight as a child shows you the _onibi _she's finally mastered. And drinking. Always, always the drinking. No different from now, really — except for the way it tasted on your tongue, not an attempt to drown your sorrows but open revelry, an expression of untamed joy.

Sometimes, when you spy a maple tree in the distance, you think of Momiji. You love her still — will love her always, maybe, even if you someday love another — but with the memory of the call _"my king" _directed at you in a hundred different voices, that love seems now much less important. The love you feel for her, after all, pales in comparison to the savage, protective devotion you feel for your people. You love them with a ferocity that might frighten you if it didn't so badly enrage you instead.

You loved them. You _loved_ them. They each loved you wholeheartedly in return, offered all of themselves to you — and yet you _forgot _them_, _down to every last child; abandoned them all in the midst of a _war_ to feel sorry for yourself and drink to a stupor, until you forgot yet more_._ _'Sorry,' _you want to tell them, and, _'I'll do better this time.' _But the demon king in your memory — fierce and proud and easy-going, always ready with a dangerous grin — would never have said those things. So you think it instead, and hide the words behind your teeth, to be swallowed down with the next drink.

One day, a vaguely-familiar _oni_ — swathed in red-soaked bandages and face covered in what you'd call tear tracks, were they not the color and consistency of dried blood — makes his long, long way home to you. He follows Ibaraki up the mountain like a bloody, ghost-white shadow, and is in turn followed, bafflingly, by Ibaraki's severed right arm. When you catch the newcomer's eye, you can almost remember — long, silk black (_unruly white, pulled back in a low tail _) hair, purple (_bright red _) eyes and fierce devotion (_a loyal friend _), a demon wearing human skin like a cloak (_and even more loyal soldier, lost by the hand of a human invader) _— but then he ducks his head, averts his gaze, and the moment is lost.

He introduces himself as _Onikiri _— demon slayer — and has no more explanation for the arm than Ibaraki does, both of them giving you near identical shrugs (the sharp jerk of Ibaraki's shoulders thoroughly furious), though Onikiri at least has the decency to look apologetic about it. Despite it being the name he's given, you see the way he flinches, every time someone calls him by it (guilt, you think, on those days you can remember the way he held you down while a power-hungry human came for your head), and so you don't. But failing to call his name makes things worse, and he can never quite seem to look you in the eyes. His meekness, when faced with you — especially in comparison to the wild ferocity he displays when he believes you're not there to see — is frustrating and infuriating by turns.

It'd help, you think to yourself one evening, many weeks later, if you had something else to call him. A by now familiar shame curls upwards at the thought. That you can't recall one man's name — can hardly recall his face — when once you could've pointed out across the mountains and written an entire eulogy on whatever demon your finger landed upon, each and every one of them — their sorrow, their fear, their joy and pride and hope — _yours _. It would solve so much, you're sure, if you just had a name for him that didn't sound like an accusation. And you _do _have it, _must _have had it, once, only you can't recall it — and neither, in his depressed fugue, can he.

_Maddening._

You slam your cup to the table with a snarl, the contents sloshing out onto the surface with the force of the motion. Onikiri is by your side in an instant, wiping away the spilled liquid and then gently drying your hands. It's a quiet subservience, four times as infuriating as Ibaraki's loud fawning ever was.

"Hey," you demand, not quite an order but close, and he turns his head _just _so, obviously attentive but gaze still lowered. Showing due deference. If you weren't already pissed right off, that alone would've done it. "Remind me to go with you, when you finally find that asshole Yorimitsu."

He bows his head in acquiescence. Hesitates, but eventually asks, "Why?"

"So I can tear his heart out and _shove it up his ass. _"

All the frustration is almost worth it for the short, startled laugh that earns you.

* * *

_"You truly were…a splendid blade…"_

Master — _Minamoto no_ _Yorimitsu, _you angrily correct yourself — it's becoming increasingly clear, was irrefutably wrong. Not just about your nature, but also about your being a "splendid blade." No, it's plainly obvious you're a truly terrible blade, one who always turns on your master. Such a simple job you had. Just obey. And still you failed it, not once but twice. Minamoto no Yorimitsu lies dead. So, too, does the demon king — _your _king — Shuten Douji.

'_Your fault', _a voice whispers, and you find you can only reply, '_I know.'_

With that and the echo of Minamoto no Yorimitsu's last words filling up your thoughts, you push yourself to your feet, paying no mind to the slick feel of your own blood beneath your palms. It's a tired, muted sort of determination — fueled largely by desperation — that drives you to follow the pull of Ibaraki Douji's arm vaguely northwards. You have to right at least one of your wrongs.

(If you had been a fraction more in your right mind, at the time, perhaps you would've wondered just where Yorimitsu's body had gone.)

The pull leads you, unsurprisingly, to the wreckage of .

You find Ibaraki Douji standing amidst the debris.

"Curse you, Onikiri!" he snarls, "I will have my revenge for my lost arm!"

"Wait!" you shout in return, "This is a misunderstanding!"

(Perhaps, in another life, he would've been so driven by anger and grief he would not have listened — would have, in fact, attacked hardly before you'd finished speaking. But, in this life, rage soothed by the promise of Shuten's slowly returning memories, he stops. He stops, and he listens.)

"If you claim stealing my arm and killing Shuten Douji were _misunderstandings, _" he sneers, "then speak."

So you do. You speak, and you tell him all you can remember — about your initial confrontation against Minamoto no Yorimitsu, how he'd bound your heart and your memories to him, against your will, and how your confrontation with Shuten Douji and, later, Ibaraki himself, undid the seal and awakened your memories.

(What you don't tell Ibaraki Douji is how Yorimitsu taught you, carefully and patiently, all the laws and morals humans seemed to understand so instinctively; how just, how righteous he'd seemed then. You do not talk of the gentle warmth of his hands on yours, the first time he'd shown you how to maintain and care for your blades, nor do you speak of how he was like the sun, bright and brilliant and so awe-inspiring you couldn't help but reach out to touch, even knowing that to do so would leave you scorched.)

You speak of betrayal, a gaping wound to the heart that bleeds even now, with Minamoto no Yorimitsu dead. (And if not all that pain is anger, if some of it is sorrow…that secret is yours to keep.) You tell him how you'd slain your former master with your own hands, even as you knew it'd drag you to your own death. But as you start to explain how you'd awoken, miraculously revived by Ibaraki's tremendous power, your left eye stings with sudden pain.

The laughter tears from your throat, jagged and sharp enough to cut. He's alive. He's alive. Minamoto no Yorimitsu is_ alive_. Damn him. You'll kill him. Curse him. He has to die. You'll kill him. He has to _die you'll kill him he has to die you'll kill himhehastodieyou'llkillhimhehasto_

You come back to yourself only because Ibaraki Douji is shaking you violently, his not inconsiderable strength rattling your whole body, right down to the bones.

Vaguely, you realize that you're still laughing, only you haven't any air left — your laughter having become an ugly, choked thing. Finally, seemingly fed up with your outburst, Ibaraki Douji backhands you across the face.

The shock of it forces you to take your first real breath in far too long.

"What the hell is _wrong _with you?" he demands.

"He's alive," you manage between great, ragged gasps, "That damned human is _alive _and I will _hunt him down."_

You move to do exactly that, ready to chase your former master to the ends of the earth if you must, only to be stopped once more by Ibaraki's hand on your shoulder.

"Hold on," he says, and you snarl, ready to throw his hand off, only to be stopped cold by his next words, "we have to tell Shuten Douji."

"He's," you choke out, the words practically a sob, "he's _alive? _"

The same statement you'd uttered but a moment ago, only the emotions so different — yet no less complicated. Ibaraki Douji nods, solemn. And of _course _Shuten Douji is alive, you realize with sudden clarity. If only a fragment of Ibaraki Douji's power was enough to revive you, completely by accident, there's no way he'd leave his king to rot — Ibaraki Douji fought you for Shuten Douji's head at Rashomon not just for pride, or a memento, but to claim a catalyst for revival.

He's undone one of your mistakes, one you'd thought irreversible. The thought leaves you giddy and breathless, and that's all it takes for the fight to leave you entirely.

Ibaraki Douji speaks, some, as you climb towards the mountain's summit. But your anger had been like a cresting tide, and as you follow him through the ruins of what once might've been a place you called home, you find that anger has now crashed to shore and ebbed away, leaving only a vast emptiness in its wake. It leaves words difficult to keep in your mind, and all you manage to process is that a significant amount of time has passed, since your once-death.

By the time the two of you find Shuten Douji, you feel only tired.

Sometimes, the last thing Minamoto no Yorimitsu ever said to you — not his last words, not now that you know he yet lives — haunt you into your dreams.

_"You truly were a splendid blade." _

On the days where you obsess over those six little words, you think it might even be true.

You would've been happy, after all, if you could've lived and died as nothing more than Minamoto no Yorimitsu's sword. But you remembered, and you can't live that life anymore — you are no longer willing to be the Minamoto clan's evil-slaying blade, can no longer bear to call that man "master." But…perhaps you wouldn't mind so much, being the demon king's sword. Shuten Douji would be a gentle master.

One day, you say as much to him.

He stares at you a moment, expression solemn, before suddenly breaking out in a grin, sharp-toothed and wide.

(Shuten Douji, you've found, smiles easily, in the way a wolf smiles easily — all bared teeth and aggression, but no less the genuine for it.)

"Alright," he agrees, sounding awfully amused by the idea, "but if you're mine now — mine again, I suppose — we can't call you Onikiri anymore, can we?"

He says it like it's simple — like he's sharing a private joke. It's relief that colors your tone when you bow your head and reply, "No, master."

If only your gaze hadn't been turned down, perhaps you wouldn't have missed the way the title made his smile dim, just a little.

"In that case," he says, "I'll give you your name when I think of it."

It takes him a while, days passing with no more mention of your renaming. You almost think he's forgotten, until one day — as the two of you head down the mountains to pick up more drink at the human village by its foot— his gaze drifts to the swords at your side, eyeing them in contemplation.

"That asshole," he asks without preamble, "he named you after one of his swords?"

"Yes," you agree. Minamoto no Yorimitsu's own _mamorigatana _, his protective charm, or so he'd claimed at the time.

Shuten Douji nods once, decisively, and raps his knuckles over the hilt of one of your swords. A part of you, instinctive, wants to dodge backwards, and tell him to keep his hands to himself. But the larger part of you says that you're his, now, and he can do as he pleases. So you do and say nothing.

"Then, from now on, you'll be Shishi no Ko."

_Shishi no Ko _— lion cub. You roll the new name over your tongue, and find its edges do not cut so deeply as _Onikiri. _It's a good name, and you accept it with grace.

* * *

"You'd be a gentle master," Onikiri says to you one day.

The statement leaves you somewhat bewildered, but you can see a sort of wistfulness in his face — something melancholy, that you'd almost call longing were it not for his listlessness. So you accept. At the very least, you'll finally be able to stop calling him by the damnable name Yorimitsu gave him.

The name you _really _want to give him is his own — the one that truly belongs to him. But you can see Onikiri's anxiety growing with each passing day, and the memory never comes. So you settle, and call him _Shishi no Ko, _named for one of his own swords. You tell him it's for his strength, and the potential you can see he'll grow into. What you don't tell him is that you need no tools, and he belongs to no one except himself.

Something changes, after you name him, but not in the way you'd hoped. Shishi no Ko grows even quieter, somehow, than he'd already been. Before, at least, you could count on a spar with one of the other demons to bring out the Shishi no Ko who lives, indistinct, in your memories. Now, though, he spares no time for others, shadowing you like a loyal hound. Sure, you don't remember much of him — only the rolling thunder of his growl — but you know, with an absolute certainty, that whatever he was, he was more than _this._

Certainly he could not have always been an unspeaking shadow, walking just behind and to the right of you, compliant and docile for all his razor-edged danger, if for no other reason than because it makes you want to punch him right in his pretty, pale face. _Surely he could not always have been what Yorimitsu made him. _And yet, somehow, despite your best efforts, nothing of importance has changed. Something has to break and, quietly, you swear that it won't be him. (You promised, after all, even if only to yourself — you promised that this time, you'd do better.)

* * *

"Shishi no Ko," master calls for you one autumn morning, as you're cleaning your swords, "finish quickly, we're heading out."

"Yes, master," you say, and your response is prompt, your hands don't stutter in their work. But, it seems, your confusion must somehow nonetheless be plain to see.

"We're going to visit that bastard onmyoji," he explains.

_Bastard onmyoji _, you've come to learn, is a phrase reserved for just one person. Certainly, other people can be _onmyoji _, and quite a few of them are _bastards _, but in combination, that particular moniker always refers to Abe no Seimei.

The trek to Abe no Seimei's courtyard is hazy and indistinct, nothing stands out in your mind save the wistful sigh or longing glance each passing maple wrests from your master.

You can't say with any certainty when the two of you arrive, only that it must have been late in the evening. By the time the world comes back into focus, the sun sinking past the horizon, it seems your master and Abe no Seimei have already exchanged many words. When finally your master turns to address you, it's with an order — the first he's ever given — upon his lips.

"Serve as Seimei's shikigami, for a while."

You don't understand. A _mamorigatana_ is meant to be carried — not even the finest of blades can protect its master when not by their side. But your master wants you here, and so you'll do as you're told. (Yours, after all, is such a simple job: just obey. And you may have failed it twice, but you will not make it thrice.)

With the fiery red of his hair haloed in the dying light and framed by the equally vibrant red of the dying leaves, he waves to you just once, over his shoulder, as he leaves — but he does not look back. By contrast, you stand at the mouth of the courtyard, staring at his back until he's disappeared into the distance, where your eyes can no longer follow.

(In an unfamiliar place filled with unfamiliar people, surrounded by the slow fall of autumn leaves — brilliant in color but dying nonetheless — you feel, somehow, as though something has ended, lost forever.)

The truth of the matter is, you don't understand why Abe no Seimei would need your assistance at all. He possesses a truly remarkable array of shikigami, ranging from run-of-the-mill demons and spirits (including, inexplicably, enough contracts with such unremarkable creatures as _nurikabe _and _hahakigami _to form a numerically impressive but very, _very, _weak army) to what, judging by the scent of their power, appear to be rightfully classified as divine spirits — perhaps even _gods._

And this, of course, is without even counting the dizzying number of spirits who seem to count Abe no Seimei as a friend. More than twice in as many weeks, the black and white hell emissaries — black more often than white —drop by to visit, seemingly for no reason at all. (And once, notably, the underworld judge, come to collect a truant Kuro Mujou.)

But the most unbelievable thing — more than the coming and going of the underworld judge or visitors from Takamagahara or, even, the presence of a member of the _Minamoto clan _— is the fact not a single one of Abe no Seimei's shikigami seem to be suppressed.

The Minamoto clan had had its share of shikigami, too, but none of them had seemed like this — free-spirited and easy-going, contracted to their onmyoji by their own will.

_ "Shikigami are little more than beasts," _Minamoto no Yorimitsu had told you, _"who need to be tamed and carefully controlled."_

Abe no Seimei appears to do no such thing. Certainly, there are rules that must be followed — from the obvious forbiddance of causing harm to humans to insignificant rules, such as keeping noise levels down at night — but for the most part, the shikigami are left to govern themselves. And yet, the worst they seem to do is be minor nuisances, several of the more child-like spirits gleefully bombarding you with questions or attempting to braid your hair or, in the case of one memorable incident, trying to paint flowers on your swords despite the fact you'd been using them at the time.

You don't understand how such a thing is possible. Eventually, you learn that one of Abe no Seimei's shikigami _had _been defeated in battle, and contracted against his will. But even he has no bitterness to offer you — only a soft smile and softer words, despite the rot-sweet tang of his power, indicative of a once-divine spirit, fallen from grace.

That, too, seems to you to be impossible. Fallen gods are vindictive and vengeful, mindless monsters consumed by their hate, malice hovering over them as dark clouds on the horizon — you'd hunted a great many of them by Minamoto no Yorimitsu's side. Yet here sits one in a sky-blue haori, patterned with birds, doing nothing more dangerous than setting out food for stray dogs and gently chiding the dragon hovering over his shoulders, when it noses at the bowls too curiously.

Your extended stay with Abe no Seimei becomes no less confusing from there.

Once, as you're helping him and several of his other shikigami — a _bakeneko_ and what appears to be some sort of rat _youkai_, dressed in a monk's habit — with a truly inane quest to rid a house of rats, Seimei pauses and, seemingly unprompted, lets out a long sigh.

Confused, you can't help but question, "Is something the matter, master?"

"No," he says, full of wry humor, "your real master merely has a terrible sense of humor."

You don't understand the statement until several moons later, when your master suddenly arrives at the courtyard, Ibaraki Douji in tow.

"Hey, bastard onmyoji!" he calls, "Drink with me a while. Call Shishi no Ko, too."

Abe no Seimei looks up from his spot at the desk beneath the truly impressive cherry tree, one fine eyebrow raised.

"Oh?" he asks, "what's the occasion?"

"Nothing," master returns, grinning the smuggest grin, "it'll be a little amnesiac party."

The onmyoji shakes his head, exasperated but clearly fond, and you are forced to admit — at least in the privacy of your own mind — that master's sense of humor is, indeed, terrible.

Master, already halfway to the backyard, helps his case not at all when he calls across the gardens for Seimei to "invite the tiny pink girl, while you're at it!"

And Minamoto no Hiromasa's voice, from somewhere within the depths of the house, angrily retorts, "STOP TRYING TO GIVE KAGURA ALCOHOL!"

In this manner, the days spent in Abe no Seimei's courtyard pass as water along rapids– too swift, too chaotic and unruly, to make sense of.

It is only later — much later, once spring has turned to winter turned to summer and back to spring several times over — when you've regained a sense of "self" and begun to see yourself, once more, as a person, rather than a weapon, that you truly understand Shuten Douji's intentions when he'd left you with Abe no Seimei, that day so many moons ago. _Oni_ live to fight, and with Shuten Douji, in the heart of that territory — you never would've become what you _were _, before you were a weapon. Minamoto no Yorimitsu had, after all, crafted a true masterwork.

But for Seimei, shikigami have never been weapons. For him, spirits have always been beautiful, and worthy of respect. He treats them like people — his shikigami are as family, and his courtyard, a home.

But not your home. Your home has always been the eye of a storm — overwhelming power and a flash of red hair — and though once, perhaps, that would've been Minamoto no Yorimitsu…you think that, before, it was probably someone else. That maybe now, it could be that person once more.

And so one spring morning, after you've cleaned your blades, you bid goodbye to Abe no Seimei and his shikigami. They all claim, as you pass them, with varying enthusiasm, that they'll miss you, until finally you've said goodbye to all of them. As you arrive at the gate, only Seimei and his inner circle remain. Kohaku and Kagura make rather a big fuss about it, insisting you must still visit, and even Minamoto no Hiromasa grudgingly admits it won't be the same with you gone. But Seimei just smiles, and bids you safe travels – though you and he both know: you'll undoubtedly be the most dangerous person on the road.

And so, your farewells done, you turn and head off in the light of the midday sun —turned a gentle, hazy pink as it filters through the cherry blossoms overhead — to find your way home.

* * *

**Notes:**

Onikiri's swords – Tomokiri, Higekiri, Shishi no Ko and, of course, the eponymous Onikiri – were real swords owned by Watanabe no Tsuna, a retainer of the Minamoto clan who, if the legends can be believed, did indeed famously defeat Ibaraki Douji, severing his arm. The catch? These were all, in reality, the same sword. The blade was renamed many, many times, earning a total of five different nicknames – though it was in reality named on seven separate occasions. One name – Tomokiri, meaning "friend cutter" (which I cannot imagine our own dear shikigami Onikiri would enjoy any more than the moniker "Onikiri") – it earned twice.

And so, while in a way, this was a story about Shuten reclaiming a sword from Yorimitsu to reforge into a man, in another, this was a story about Onikiri finding himself.

Thank you for reading.


End file.
